Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider recently pledged his support for Ukraine saying he was proud the country was using “We’re Not Gonna Take It” as a battle cry. On Thursday, Snider also released a new, reworked video for his song “Stand” in support of World United Live’s initiatives and the people of Ukraine. “Some great people (who were all friends of mine) were hatching the idea for World United Live and asked me if I would spearhead the organization,” Snider said. “How could I say no? Since then, we have been beating the drum for the free world to come together, not only in support of Ukraine and condemnation of Putin, but in sending a message to the Russian people that they are misinformed and not being told the truth. Now, with the help of the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and many others, we are doing just that!” Other World United Live “messengers” include Disturbed singer David Draiman and FOZZY frontman Chris Jericho.
Recently, Snider spoke about his past and the rise of grunge in the early ’90s with Armchair MBA. The Twisted Sister frontman was asked if he saw bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden slowly gaining popularity at the expense of ’80s metal.
“Well, no one saw it coming, but I was already dead and semi-buried before grunge hit,” Snider said. “Twisted arrived in the early ’80s and then we hit our stride in the mid-’80s and by the late ’80s, the band had broken up. I had a band called Desperado that got shelved by Elektra Records; a lot of money we spent on that record. So I was sort of already removed as a featured artist by that point, and I was struggling trying to find my footing with Desperado and then Widowmaker. And then I got the letter in the mail, certified letter, ‘We have decided we’re no longer doing what you do — look like you, sound like you, sing like you, write like you, perform like you. We actually don’t want anything to do with anything you ever did. Sincerely, the music-buying public.’ [Laughs] And that’s when the bottom really fell out. I mean, imagine being a doctor who studied a form of medicine, and they found a cure for it. You’re a cancer specialist — a specialist; it’s what you dedicated your life to — and you get a pill that cures [cancer]. You’re out of work. Grunge cured hair metal. So I was out of work.”
Dee spoke previously with Ultimate Guitar about the demise of “hair metal.” “When it first came out, I was, again, doing metal radio, and I was playing Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana on my show, and I was like, ‘This is great, heavy new stuff.’ So then it became defined as grunge, and then it was the hair metal killer, and that was awful. But I don’t blame it on the music; hair metal did it to itself. It became too commercialized, and then it got unplugged and became nothing but power ballads and acoustic songs, and it wasn’t metal anymore. It had to go; it had to change.”
